Battle of Khotyn (1621)

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Battle of Khotyn
Part of the Moldavian Magnate Wars and Polish-Ottoman War (1620–1621)

Battle of Khotyn, by Józef Brandt
Date 2 September-9 October 1621
Location near Khotyn, Moldavia
Result Polish-Lithuanian Victory
Belligerents
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Ottoman Empire
Commanders
Grand Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz †
Regimentarz Stanisław Lubomirski
Crown Prince Władysław Waza
Ataman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny		 Sultan Osman II
Grand Vizier Ohrili Hüseyin Pasha
Khan Temir
Canibek Giray
Strength
50,000-60,000[1]
~half Polish-Lithuanian army, half Cossacks		 100,000-500,000[1]
~quarter various allies
Casualties and losses
14,500 42,000

Battle of Khotyn (Chocim) (2 September - 9 October 1621) was a battle between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth army and an army of the Ottoman Empire and its allies. It was here that, for a whole month (2 September to 9 October), the commanding officer of Commonwealth forces Grand Hetman of Lithuania Jan Karol Chodkiewicz held the sultan Osman II at bay, up until the first autumn snow. Commonwealth forces stopped the Ottoman advance into the Commonwealth. On 9 October, after sustaining heavy losses in several assaults on the fortified Commonwealth lines, Ottomans abandoned the siege and the battle ended with a treaty favorable to the Commonwealth.

Contents

[edit] Prelude

For more details on this topic, see Moldavian Magnate Wars.

From the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century, the magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth intervened in the affairs of Moldavia, which the Ottoman Empire considered within its sphere of influence. Additionally, the Ottomans were aggravated by the constant raids of Cossacks, then nominally subjects of the Commonwealth, across the border into Ottoman territories.

In the meantime, the Thirty Years' War was raging across Europe. The Commonwealth was relatively uninvolved in this war but the Polish king, Zygmunt III Waza, sent an elite and ruthless mercenary unit, the Lisowczycy, to aid his Hapsburg allies. They defeated George I Rákóczi of Transylvania at the Battle of Humienne in 1619, and Gabriel Bethlen asked Sultan Osman II for aid. He agreed, and a large Ottoman army was gathered with the intent of a punitive invasion of the Commonwealth. In 1620, he crushed the Commonwealth army at the Battle of Ţuţora (Cecora). The campaign was suspended for the winter but, in 1621, both sides resumed hostilities.

In 1621, an army of 100,000 to 250,000 soldiers (sources vary), led by Osman II, advanced from Istanbul and Adrianople in April, towards the Polish frontier. The Turks, following their victory in the Battle of Ţuţora, had high hopes of conquering Ukraine (then a part of Poland), and perhaps even toppling the Commonwealth entirely and reaching the Baltic Sea. Khan Temir of the Budjak Horde and Khan of Crimea, Canibek Giray. Approximately one quarter of Ottoman forces were composed of allied Tatars, Moldavians and Wallachians soldiers. The Ottoman army had about 66 guns.

In Poland, meantime, the Sejm, shaken by the last years defeat, agreed to raise taxes and fund a larger army, as well as recruit a large number of Cossack allies. The Polish commander, Grand Lithuanian Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz crossed the Dniester river in September 1621 with approximately 20,000 soldiers, joined by 10,000 led by the future king of Poland, then prince Władysław Waza. The Polish-Lithuanian army numbered 30,000 (18,000 cavalry, 12,000 infantry) and further 25,000-30,000 Cossack allies, led by ataman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny (mostly infantry). The Commonwealth army had about 50 guns.

[edit] The battle

Contemporary drawing of battle formations and defenses for battle of Chocim, 1621.
Contemporary drawing of battle formations and defenses for battle of Chocim, 1621.
Khotyn (Chocim) Fortress, the centerpoint of defense.
Khotyn (Chocim) Fortress, the centerpoint of defense.

The Polish-Lithuanian army arrived near Khotyn around 20 August and started entrenching itself near the Khotyn Fortress, blocking the path of the Ottoman march. The army, following a common Commonwealth defense when facing large Ottoman armies, employed deep defences by building separate field works in front of the camp's defences. These field works were designed to allow the use of cavalry counter attacks, especially crucial for the Commonwealth relying on its elite Polish Hussars. A semi-circle of field fortifications was created, with the fortress behind them, and with borders on the Dniester river. The circle was divided into three sections: right, commanded by Hetman Chodkiewicz, central, commanded by Prince Władysław, and left, under Regimentarz Lubomirski. In addition, two fortified camps were set in front of the main defence line: the Cossack's and the mercenary's (the famous Lisowczycy unit).

On 27 August a Cossack cavalry detachment carried out a suicidal raid delaying the approaching Ottoman forces, taking down several times their number before being nearly annihilated. On 31 August Ottoman cavalry in turn struck at the Cossacks forces outside camp, trying without success to scatter them and cut off from main Polish-Lithuanian forces. By 2 September, the main Ottoman army had arrived, and the siege began.

On 2 September the Ottomans tried to breach the unfinished Cossack camp, but Cossacks having received reinforcements from the Polish-Lithuanian army held. On 3 September, another Ottoman assault, directed at the Lubomirski's flank of the main fortifications, was stopped. On 4 September, Ottomans again tried to overrun the Cossacks camp but failed, and a Commonwealth counterattack managed to destroy several Ottoman guns in the nearby positions. Thus the experienced Commonwealth forces were able to withstand the Ottoman assaults, because forces contained too much cavalry and inexperienced artillery to be efficient. Two more Ottoman attacks failed on 7 September.

Defending the Polish banner at Chocim, Juliusz Kossak, 1892
Defending the Polish banner at Chocim, Juliusz Kossak, 1892

After several costly assaults that failed in the first week of the siege, the Ottomans tried to take the Polish forces by cutting off their supplies and reinforcements, and waiting for them succumb to hunger and disease. A temporary bridge was raised by 14 September over the Dniester that allowed the Ottomans to stop the Commonwealth fortress from communicating via the river with another nearby fortress at Kamianets-Podilskyi. It also allowed the Ottoman forces to shift some of their cannons to the other bank of the river and shell Commonwealth forces from the rear. Another Ottoman assault on the 15 September was defeated by the defenders.

Although the Polish defenders were weakened, the Ottomans failed to break their morale. But the defenders were running low on food and supplies. On September 24, 1621, a few days before the siege was lifted, the aged Grand Hetman died of exhaustion and illness in the camp. Chodkiewicz's second-in-command, Regimentarz Stanisław Lubomirski took command of the Polish camp from September 23, when the ailing hetman passed the command to him. On 25 September Lubomirski ordered his weakened forces to pull back and man a smaller, shorter, defensive line; the Ottomans tried another assault hoping for the defenders to be disorganized but again, they failed. Another, final, assault was stopped on the 28 September.

The deaths of approximately 40,000 of his men, the general exhaustion of the Ottoman army, and the fact that his large force was also running out of supplies, compelled Osman to except the request of opposite side to start negotiations, even through the Polish-Lithuanian forces were almost out of their supplies (a legend states that by the end of the siege, the Commonwealth army was down to its last barrel of gunpowder).

[edit] Aftermath

The Death of Chodkiewicz, Franciszek Smuglewicz, 1806
The Death of Chodkiewicz, Franciszek Smuglewicz, 1806

A peace treaty was signed, rather favorable for the Commonwealth. But also Ottoman Emperor gained what he wanted. There were no territorial changes; the Commonwealth-Ottoman border was confirmed to be the Dniester river, and the Commonwealth recognized Ottoman control over Moldavia. In the Commonwealth, and among the Cossacks, stopping of the huge Ottoman army was seen as a great victory.

The Ottomans, on the other hand, even though they gained Commonwealth recognition of their control over Moldavia, were in much worse shape internally. Notably, Chodkiewicz wasn't the only one to die as a result of that battle: sultan Osman himself paid the highest price for the failure of his plans. The Khotyn outcome, and the Ottoman failure to crush the outnumbered Commonwealth army, led Osman to put the blame on the janissaries. Osman wanted to modernize the army, which he blamed for the defeat; his plans for modernization were, however, opposed by the traditional-minded janissaries, culminating in the rebellion of janissaries in 1622, in which Osman II was assassinated.[2]

[edit] Cultural impact

It was a significant victory over the Ottoman Empire by a Christian Army at a time when the West was embroiled in the Thirty Years' War, and could not afford to face a strong and focused Ottoman army. In the Commonwealth, it was the largest battle at that point in its history and proclaimed as a great victory over the 'infidels'.

One of the best accounts of the battle comes from Wacław Potocki's Transakcja wojny chocimskiej (The Progress of the War of Chocim), written during the period 1669–1672. It was based on the less-known Commentariorum Chotinensis belli libri tres ("Commentary on the Chocim War in three volumes") (diary, published in 1646) by Jakub Sobieski and other sources, now lost.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Sources vary. Most sources give the number of Commonwealth forces at 30,000 total, and Cossack detachment at 25,000-40,000. The Ottoman army is commonly given as about 100,000, but some sources give much larger numbers up to 250,000 or even 500,000[1]. As there seem to be no documents directly referencing the Ottoman army, those numbers are based on the contemporary sources stating that the "Ottoman army was very large and certainly much larger then the Commonwealth one".

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • Leszek Podhorodecki, Wojna chocimska 1621 roku, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1979, ISBN 8308001467
  • Janusz Pajewski, Buńczuk i koncerz: z dziejów wojen polsko-tureckich, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, Poznań 1997